Shmulik Kraus

Shmulik Kraus (born July 1, 1935 in Jerusalem; died February 17, 2013 in Tel Aviv) was an Israeli singer, composer, actor and poet. He was a pioneer of Israeli pop and rock, receiving a lifetime achievement awards from channel 10 in 2005 and from Israel's Ministry of Education in 2006. He started his singing career in the late 1950s working with Abi Ofarim. Kraus became famous in his native country in the 1960s as one third of The High Windows with Arik Einstein and his wife at the time, Josie Katz, writing all the music for the trio. He frequently collaborated with lyricist Yankale Rotblit and wrote music for Einstein, Arik Lavie and Shalom Hanoch. Kraus' career was repeatedly interrupted by violent incidents and periods in mental hospitals, later attributed to bipolar disorder in a 2014 biopic. His first of seven solo albums, A Criminal Record (1977), was written while he served time on gun charges and recorded during a brief furlough in 1971. In 1975 he and Katz recorded a children's album based on poems by Miriam Yalan-Shteklis set to music by Kraus. Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon chose his song “Hatishma Koli” to be played while he orbited earth on the Columbia space shuttle in 2003.